Parental leave in the UK is confusing for both families and businesses, the Business Secretary has said, as a major review into the system is announced.
The review will look at maternity, paternity and shared parental leave to investigate how improvements might be made.
Currently, most new dads and second partners are able to take up to two weeks of paid leave from work after a baby is born.
Most mums and birthing parents, meanwhile, can take up to 52 paid weeks off work – though lower pay kicks in after 39 weeks.
Alongside the familiar paternity leave and maternity leave, the UK also has adoption leave, parental leave, parental bereavement leave, shared parental leave and neonatal care leave.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the current situation is ‘confusing, even for businesses’.
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He added: ‘They don’t know what they should be offering or what they need to be doing.’
One in three new dads do not take statutory paternity leave, government statistics show, largely because they can’t afford to.
Pay on paternity leave – and maternity leave after 39 weeks – is £187.18 or 90% of average earnings, whichever is lower. That figure is less than half the National Living Wage.
Reynolds told Sky News: ‘Wouldn’t we all stand to benefit from a society where we didn’t just give people more time with new children, but also culturally had the situation where men and women, in equal measure, saw this as something they were able to do and it wouldn’t affect their careers?
‘It would build a kind of pro-family working environment that I think the UK needs to consider.’
The review, which was launched today, is expected to take around 18 months to complete.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said: ‘Those early years are the most special time for families, but too many struggle to balance their work and home lives.
‘Supporting working parents isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s vital for our economy.’
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trade Unions Congress, described the review as a ‘welcome starting point’ and an ‘important opportunity’.
He added: ‘Without better rights to well-paid leave, too many new parents will continue to miss out on spending time with their children – with dads often missing out most.
‘And mums will continue to take on the bulk of caring. That holds back women at work, working families and our wider economy too.’
However, Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith said government ministers ‘need to wake up and realise the more costs that are piled on to employers, the more jobs will be destroyed’.
He said: ‘If you’ve no job in the first place it doesn’t matter how much family leave you get.’
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